And then there are people like Ted Jago. At 82, he’s doing well. Illnesses have banged him up
a bit over the years, he says, but he’s active and involved.

A couple of weeks ago, the Dublin man was teaching a 90-year-old woman how to use Google maps
at OhioHealth’s Gerlach Center for Senior Health.

Jago said he thinks the key to living a long life and living it well is to find ways to help
others. Be useful, he said. Don’t sit in the recliner all day. His wife, Jayne, is 85 and
volunteers as well.

“I think a lot of it is having something outside (of) yourself,” Mr. Jago said.

In medicine, the idea of age and of frailty is evolving. In more-progressive circles,
patients aren’t looked at as old just because they’re older than 65. Rather, doctors are looking
for ways to better assess frailty.

Why? There is a vast difference between a 75-year-old who is hearty and one who is fragile.

Send the first into surgery, and she’s far more likely to recover and return to her normal
activities. Hospital patients who are less-robust might benefit most from care in a unit with more
nurses.

“If we can identify those at risk for problems and already going down the functionally
declining pathway, we may be able to increase the quantity and quality of their lives,” said Dr.
Stuart J. Kanter of Central Ohio Geriatrics.

On the other side of things, there can be good arguments for surgery in patients who’d
normally be considered poor candidates based on age alone, Kanter said.

“You might have a very vibrant 90-year-old who is out playing golf three times a week, and he
may greatly benefit (from a new heart valve). You don’t want to get into false cutoffs,” he said. “
In medicine, we see a lot of ageism.”

Dr. Donald Mack, a geriatrician at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, said that
in his field, functional assessments are replacing assumptions based on age.

“Frailty is the loss of reserve and resilience. Most people can observe this,” he said.

Activity decreases, the person is weaker and walks slower. He or she loses muscle mass and
weight.

“It should heighten your awareness of increased problems, and the family’s, too.”

Defining whether people are frail or how weak they are is an inexact science, experts say.

Mack said he has seen patients who he thought would get through a knee replacement struggle
to do the rehab work and get back on their feet.

Those who are giving the issue more thought are considering not just chronological age but
also other factors, including how many chronic diseases the patient has and how many medications he
or she is taking.

Drs. Stanislaw Stawicki and David C. Evans are trauma surgeons at the Wexner Medical Center
who have come up with a scoring system to determine how much reserve someone has. Points are
assigned for each chronic condition and medication a patient takes.

The points amount to physiological baggage, and a high number helps alert doctors to the more
at-risk patients, Stawicki said.

Evans said the score helps surgeons and others make treatment decisions, including whether
the patient should be closely monitored after surgery or go to an intensive-care unit — things that
might not be advised for a healthier patient.

“We know that age is an important factor, but it’s also obvious to us that patients with
co-morbidities who need to take more medications are not going to do as well when they suffer a
serious injury,” he said.

Advice on living long starts with what we’ve all heard over and over. Don’t smoke. Eat well.
Exercise.

But research is shining more light on other factors, Kanter said. Those with strong social
networks tend to do better. So do those with positive mental attitudes.

Loneliness can play a large role in an older person’s decline, especially if he or she loses
a spouse, said Dr. Marian Schuda, the medical director of OhioHealth’s Gerlach Center.

Loneliness can lead to isolation and decreased activity. “We’re social beings, and we really
need to be connected to each other,” Schuda said.

Mr. Jago said he began his volunteer work when he was a 12-year-old living in England during
World War II. He was a Boy Scout whose job it was to run messages from his neighborhood to the
authorities during bombing raids. At times, he had to stay up all night.

When he meets people his age and older who are doing well, most of them have learned that
they have something to offer somebody else, he said.